THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM

Fear and violence
Politicians sputter, the media frets and the public quavers in fear. But is terrorism really the scourge of our times? Wayne Ellwood reports.

Symbolic politics
Jorge Nef explains how terrorist tactics can change the nature of political debate.

Wanted: for crimes against their people
State terrorism: an NI round-up of the worst offenders.

No place to call home
Sheila Ryan explains how the Palestinian diaspora has accelerated the pace of Middle East violence.

Burying the ‘Vietnam syndrome’
Michael T Klare on Washington’s attempts to purge the past and come out fighting.

TERRORISM-THE FACTS

The manweloveto hate
Gaddafi’s bad image: Diana Johnstone separates fact from fantasy.

Fear eats the soul
Lake Sagaris reports from Chile on the psychology of violence.

Turning the tide
Solidarity can make a difference. Betsy
Hartmannon how we can help people living under regimes of terror.

Trouble next door
Australian action for human rights in troubled East Timor. By George Fisher.

NO KIDDING
The life and times of Johnny Vengeance.

New Internationalist is a strange beast. For one thing there is our name - which you've probably noticed has been shortened in the last few months. For years everyone, editors, readers, friends and relatives have been valiantly trying to wrap their tongues around those polysyllables. Well, no more. Now we're just plain old NI, or the NI if you prefer: equally vague but a lot easier to pronounce.

But shortening our name hasn't meant we've lost our international focus or our special interest in the Third World. In fact we are an international magazine in ways other small publishers find hard to believe. If you've ever skimmed through our masthead you'll have noticed we have three editorial offices: in the UK, Canada and Australia. Not so unusual you might say. And you would be right if we were part of some media mogul's empire. But we're not - not by a long shot. We have a floating core of editors, at the moment totalling about six and a half.

And that's complicated by the fact that we operate as an editorial collective. That's why you see a different mugshot illustrating this column every month. At least twice a year (and sometimes three) you might sense a slight mid-Atlantic twang in the NI. That's when our Canadian editors (myself or my colleague Richard Swift) take the editorial reins. How does it work? Well, I'd be the first to admit there are problems feeling intimate with fellow workers 4,000 miles away. But it is getting easier. We spend a lot of time burning up transatlantic telephone lines and we're looking into electronic mail. Some multinational corporations may bristle at our name but not Bell Canada and British Telecom.

In Australia and New Zealand the arrangement is slightly different. A small, dedicated network of people promotes and manages the NI in those two countries. And we depend on a variety of people in Australian development agencies for helpful editorial hints.

One of the advantages of a rotating editorship is the range of interests each of us brings to the NI. Naturally we share the same broad political views, but we also have our own hobby horses. One of mine is American foreign policy - not altogether surprising given the overwhelming US control over Canada's culture and economy. Like Brits, Australians, and much of the rest of the world I suspect, Canadians watch our southern neighbour with a mixture of fear, fascination and grudging respect.

America is a nation past its imperial heyday led by a President with a fierce nostalgia for power. Those who snicker at Mr Reagan's intellect should be chastened by his single-minded approach to foreign policy and his demonstrated penchant for military solutions. American firepower is a real and serious threat to global development.

We decided to do this issue on terrorism long before the military strike in Libya. Events of the last six months have only confirmed our choice. The US is still an economic juggernaut in whose wake the rest of the world either rides triumphantly - or capsizes. And though it may be absurd, Washington's seal of approval is still the single most important influence on political change in the Third World.

As a magazine with a mandate to campaign on issues of world poverty we ignore the antics of Mr Reagan and his cohorts at our peril. That's why we feel it is important to sift through American rhetoric and provide an analytic framework for US actions. By providing a guide through the swamp of propaganda, misinformation and distortion surrounding the terrorism debate we hope to create a better understanding of the forces at work in the world. To find out what is really at stake - for the Third World and for the rest of us.

Letters
Letter from Murinye
Update
Briefly
Endpiece: by Rahul Bedi
Reviews: including the NI Classic
Country profile: Somalia

COVER PHOTO: P.Perrin / Gamma / Spooner
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER